Name: Southern Monterey Bay Eelgrass

Display Field: COMNAME

Type: Feature Layer

Geometry Type: esriGeometryPolygon

Description: One of the most important functions of the southern Monterey Bay coastal system is its role as a habitat for a unique flora and fauna. The beaches are habitat for numerous invertebrate species, which provide an important food source for shorebirds, seabirds, marine mammals, and fish. The beaches are also important to the endangered western snowy plover for foraging, nesting, and wintering. Subtidal areas contain kelp, eelgrass, and rocky reef, which provide habitat for marine mammals and fish. Dune areas provide habitat for many native plants and the endangered black legless lizard and Smith’s blue butterfly. A key factor that needs to be considered as part of any beach nourishment project is the potential for smothering or temporary loss of marine life or habitats when placing the sand.Eelgrass (Zostera marina) is considered important submerged aquatic vegetation of special interest in California, special aquatic sites (vegetated shallows) under the federal Clean Water Act (SAIC, 2008), and Essential Fish Habitat (NOAA Fisheries and federal and state agency designation). Cutting and disturbing eelgrass is prohibited by California fishing regulations. Eelgrass provides habitat for a variety of invertebrates and fish, including nursery habitat. The primary factors controlling eelgrass growth are light availability, substrate composition, temperature, salinity, nutrient availability, and wave/current energy. Light affects the depth distribution of eelgrass through its role in photosynthesis. The degree to which light is attenuated with depth in the water column is a strong determinant of the lower limit to which eelgrass can grow. Eelgrass can grow in a wide variety of substrates, but generally they flourish in medium to fine sands that contain relatively high levels of organic matter and nutrients. Prior to 1993, the Del Monte eelgrass meadow covered a continuous 0.1 square miles of the seabed in water depths of 20-30 feet inshore and west of the rocky reef and kelp forest. Zimmerman et al. (2001) indicated that the meadow was fragmented and reduced to less than 50% of its total size following heavy grazing by a southern species of limpet that began in 1993. The prospects for recovery of the meadow to its former size were not considered favorable due to the limpet grazing. However, data after 2001 are limited and the status of this eelgrass meadow was not known as of 2005 (CDFG, 2005).

Copyright Text: Zimmerman, R.C., Steller, D.L., Kohrs, D.G. and Alberte, R.S. (2001), The Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG), California Coastal Sediment Management Workgroup

Default Visibility: true

MaxRecordCount: 2000

Supported Query Formats: JSON, geoJSON, PBF

Min Scale: 3000000

Max Scale: 0

Supports Advanced Queries: true

Supports Statistics: true

Has Labels: false

Can Modify Layer: true

Can Scale Symbols: false

Use Standardized Queries: true

Supports Datum Transformation: true

Extent:

XMin: -1.3568802106800001E7
YMin: 4383753.938699998
XMax: -1.35677440849E7
YMax: 4384389.135799997
Spatial Reference: 102100  (3857)

Drawing Info:

Renderer:
Unique Value Renderer:
Field 1: COMNAME
Field 2: N/A
Field 3: N/A
Field Delimiter: ,
Default Symbol:
N/A
Default Label: N/A
UniqueValueInfos:
• Value: Eelgrass
  Label: Eelgrass
  Description: N/A
  Symbol:
  Style: esriSFSSolid
  Color: [0, 0, 0, 0]
  Outline:
  Style: esriSLSDashDot
  Color: [112, 168, 0, 255]
  Width: 2
Transparency: 0
Labeling Info:

Advanced Query Capabilities:

Supports Statistics: true
Supports OrderBy: true
Supports Distinct: true
Supports Pagination: true
Supports TrueCurve: true
Supports Returning Query Extent: true
Supports Query With Distance: true
Supports Sql Expression: true
Supports Query With ResultType: false
Supports Returning Geometry Centroid: false
Supports Binning LOD: false
Supports Query With LOD Spatial Reference: false

HasZ: false

HasM: false

Has Attachments: false

HTML Popup Type: esriServerHTMLPopupTypeAsHTMLText

Type ID Field: null

Fields:

• OBJECTID ( type: esriFieldTypeOID, alias: OBJECTID )
• SHAPE ( type: esriFieldTypeGeometry, alias: Shape )
• COMNAME ( type: esriFieldTypeString, alias: Common Name, length: 150 )
• SCINAME ( type: esriFieldTypeString, alias: Scientific Name, length: 150 )
• YEAR ( type: esriFieldTypeString, alias: Year, length: 10 )
• DESCRIPTION ( type: esriFieldTypeString, alias: Description, length: 255 )
• SOURCE ( type: esriFieldTypeString, alias: Information Source, length: 255 )
• RSMP ( type: esriFieldTypeString, alias: RSMP, length: 100 )
• SHAPE_Length ( type: esriFieldTypeDouble, alias: SHAPE_Length )
• SHAPE_Area ( type: esriFieldTypeDouble, alias: SHAPE_Area )

Supported Operations:   Query   Query Attachments   Query Analytic   Generate Renderer   Return Updates

  Iteminfo   Thumbnail   Metadata